Condé Nast beaten up

As expected, September ad pages are looking pretty bleak - and September is typically the fattest month of the year. Here's a sampler of the titles and the percentage drop from a year earlier:

Bon Appetit: down 40 percent
Traveler: down 44 percent
Details: down 34 percent
Glamour: down 41 percent
Golf Digest: up 0.2 percent
Gourmet: down 51 percent
GQ: down 31 percent
Lucky: down 36 percent
Self: down 50 percent
Vanity Fair: down 36 percent
Vogue: down 36 percent
W: down 53 percent
Wired: down 41 percent

The lousy numbers help explain the decision to hire consulting firm McKinsey for an emergency look-see. The task, said CEO Chuck Townsend, is figuring out how to survive in an economy "that is now predicted to be painfully slow in recovering." That's led to all kinds of speculation about more layoffs. ("Heads Will Roll after Condé' Nast's McKinsey Audit," screamed the NY Post.) From the NY Observer:

The numbers are skewed since Fashion Rocks, the supplement that the majority of the monthly magazines used to pad their ad page totals last year, suspended publication late last year. So going into September, publishers at the majority of Conde Nast's 18 magazines knew they'd be fighting an uphill battle without the extra push from Fashion Rocks.